Ira Lav - Emotions rule

( or MAY I FEEL SAID SHE)

This book was inspired by my own passion and curiosity for emotions, my friends’ experience (male and female) and their points of view and feelings.

The characters resemble the people I’ve known. The chapters are similar to the events happened in real life. I did mix, embroider a little and intertwine everything into a lovely plot which I really do hope you will love.

Some moments bring us laughter, some moments bring us tears, some moments give us drive or maybe needed peace.

May you find at least one scene that will touch your heart or maybe remind you of some moments in your own life…

Yours,

Ira Lav

Darkness. A single patch of sunlight was escaping through the blackout curtains from both sides of the window. Katya woke up in her king-size bed, her limbs scattered as if of a starfish. Her state could be compared to a shaken bottle of soda that had just been opened. That was just her uncontrollable giggle of joy triggered by her memories of the previous night. To be precise, her late alfa-gravity class with her coach, the thirty-seven-year-old Alexandre. Broad-shouldered, tall, fair-haired young chap with piercing grey eyes and deep confident voice. What a treat for a single aging woman…

During the class, Katya might have stretched one of her arm muscles. Not surprising – she was no longer a young lassie. Feeling responsible, Alexandre thought he ought to do something about it. He suggested massaging it. His deep voice assured her that she could fully trust him as he’d finished massage courses.

As his hands began their firm and confident gliding along her arm muscles, Katya closed her eyes and relaxed. A moment later, she wished he would never stop. How blessing every day was. Even when your muscles hurt.

‘Tell me if it hurts,’ Alexandre said as-a-matter-of-factly.

‘Damn, it feels so good. You must be having lots of clients,’ stated Katya, slightly rocking from his strong gliding hands.

‘Oh, I’ve never thought of massaging as earning money. I just do it when someone needs it. Like, to my relatives or friends when they’re in pain, now you… maybe I should try earning some extra dough with it,’ he said chuckling.

‘I’d be the first client then. I’ve been thinking of having my back massaged for ages. Just didn’t know where to go to,’ said Katya with a slight moan in her voice.

‘I could give you the first massage now if you want to. The first one is for free, for my first client,’ the coach suggested seriously with a hardly noticeable playful undertone.

‘Right here?’ wondered Katya rounding her eyes and, at the same time, expecting an affirmative answer.

‘No one is here. It’s my last class, and the receptionist has already left. On Fridays, I am responsible for closing the place. No worries,’ informed Alexandre with an innocent smile.

He fetched a mat from the corner of the room and a clean towel from the receptionist’s shelf. He spread it out on the mat, ‘Would that do for a massage table?’ wondered the ex-coach and newly-hired massage therapist squatting on the mat.

‘I suppose,’ Katya raised her shoulders and stretched her lips in a satisfactory smile.

‘Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right back,’ uttered the jack-of-all-trades and left the room.

As he came back Katya was lying on the towel on her stomach, topless, anticipating his touch – goosebumps all over.

‘Do they have some music in here?’ wondered the patient.

‘Some yoga mantras, I believe. They have yoga classes in this room as well. Let me check,’ he said. ‘What ancient equipment,’ he said trying to turn on the cd-center that he found in the corner of the room. As Alexandre held a wire he said, ‘Wait a minute, I think I can plug in my iPhone. I think I have some jazz. Would that suit you for the massage?’

‘I guess so,’ was Katya’s reply.

As the music began, he approached the mat and kneeled down near Katya.

‘Sorry, no massage oil here I would find,’ he warned and began rubbing his palms against each other.

‘No problem,’ Katya said paying attention only to her back and to the loads of energy she was feeling coming from this guy.

What welcoming and ticklish anticipation covered her back! It seemed to be a giant runway ready for a plane to land. Finally, she felt his warm palms spread over her back – gliding, pushing, making her feel like dough in his firm men’s hands. The dough that was getting constant knots of electricity from his touch. Katya knew the feeling. A hell of a lot of chemistry she was getting from this young stud. And she felt the chemistry was mutual, so why not enjoy the evening? Her thoughts were interrupted by her own moaning as the masseur began to handle one spot with persistence.

‘Does it hurt here?’ Alexandre asked as a doctor pressing the very spot harder with his firm fingers.

‘Yeah,’ said the patient. He concentrated on the spot now catterpillaring with his thumbs up the tension zone.

‘I think not a little,’ he said and added, ‘You have hell of a tension right here’.

He kept on working on the same spot, now chopping up the tension zone with his loose hands luring Ekaterina’s blood flow to come up to help him heal her body.

‘It hurts but I like it. It feels good, a bit painful and ticklish but good. The same feeling when your muscles hurt when you’ve overworked, but I adore the feeling,’ explained Katya, her voice as if coming from a deep dungeon.

‘Good for you. Some cannot stand the pain and plead me to stop the execution,’ Alexandre informed chuckling.

One song ended, and Teach Me Tiger by Marilyn Monroe filled the atmosphere around with its seducing, flirting, sexual vibes.

‘Didn’t know men listen to Marilyn Monroe these days,’ meowed Katya under Alexandre’s probing fingers.

He said as an expert, ‘Well, who else would Marilyn sing to… actually, it’s not my music. My sister borrowed my phone for one night, well, me with the phone, for her jazz party, cuz her phone had got broken. Good that I kept the music. It appears quite handy tonight.’

As the procedure was close to an end, Alexander placed his palms on Katya’s back and held them still. Then he took Katya’s T-shirt to cover her back.

‘That’s it. Lay still for a couple of minutes and only then get up,’ he instructed.

‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she exclaimed turning over on her back, her T-shirt flying over. She held herself on her elbows demanding, ‘I would also like a massage on my front side, please,’ her no-longer-firm breasts exposed and her eyes boring into his pupils surrounded by light grey.

He stared steadily at her for a whole minute. Never losing eye contact, the masseur silently placed his right knee and right hand close to the opposite side of her body and sat on her like on a horse. He gave her a gliding but confident kiss. Was he still in the massaging mode? Or could it be simply his style? His feature? Confidence all around him as his aura?

‘Call me Sasha, Katya,’ he informed. ‘Would you like an inner massage too?’ he asked, his breathing deep and frequent at the same time, eyes half-closed.

‘Absolutely,’ Katya whispered in his ear and began pulling off his gym pants.

‘G’od, I’m nuts – he is a cute lil boy. He is nuts – I’m almost fifty-five, damn, almost a pensioner …but what a night!’ Katya exclaimed and sailed out of bed, drew apart the heavy curtains smiling to the morning sunshine. She couldn’t get herself together. No meditation she was to perform that day. Goosebumps all over her body, fire in her chest were making her smile like a baby. She could not keep still.

She turned on her laptop to find the Teach me, Tiger song and sat down silently listening to the beginning. Her pinky finger between her teeth. Her tongue somewhere in between. She got up and started floating across the room playing with her purple nightgown. Floaty dance was her meditation that morning.

Finally, she approached the mirror and looked at herself. What did the woman in the purple nightgown see? Did she see the real self? What kind of a woman had she grown into? And how had she been transforming into the one she saw in front of her?

There stood a tall, ripe woman. The wrinkles on her face and neck suggested she could be somewhere in her mid-forties. She took great care of her skin without any popular injections but with masks, massage, and facial acupuncture. She took hormones to boost her libido. She felt great! No one could ever tell her real age. She was slim, fit from swimming and her recent alfa-gravity classes. Hanging on ropes attached to the ceiling did its wonders to her body. She was proud of her looks. Ekaterina winked at her reflection and smiled. Her hair used to be blonde, but now she was dying it blonde to hide the white color of aging. Her besties had once nicknamed her Blondie, hence, she should remain so. What if they changed the nickname to White-haired? She would never like to be called so, would she?

‘Maybe I should stop dying it and let it be natural. Why should I hide age changes? Cuz everybody does. But I’m not everybody. Or am I?’ she asked herself roughly touching her strands making them fluffy from tangling. She danced more in front of the mirror seducingly showing off her hips. The aka stripper abruptly stopped and hunched theatrically when she remembered what day it was. The obligation of this day triggered a sudden lump in her chest which was about to ignite Katya’s whole anxiety of the day. She caught the hue of the thought. Why did the day promise to be full of anxiety? No, she was to tune herself on a positive breakthrough for both herself and her daughter. She sat on her bed. She placed her palms up on her knees and closed her eyes. Katya began her gratitude routine she’d started practising for quite a time already. She was grateful for her daughter, for her functioning body, for a tremendous sea of energy she had felt with Alexandre the day before. She was thankful for being alive. And she visualised the upcoming talk with her daughter to be honest and awakening.

It was her daughter’s birthday. Eighteen years before Katya had decided to tell her birthday girl about her Dad on her eighteen’s birthday. Back then Katya had named her Varvara, Varya (same as Barbara, to inject some wilderness into her character, some barbarian nature). Today was the time to let her little birdie fly out from under her mum’s wing and enjoy life and freedom. Easy said than done. Blondie still saw her daughter as her little girl. The girl whom she had breastfed, nursed, shared times of illness and success, failures and victories, whom she knew so well and would always care about her as she, Ekaterina Mitrofanova, was simply her mother.